The differences between the Tabloids and The Broadsheets.

The British press can be divided into two main categories. The popular press Tabloids and the more serious newspapers the broadsheets. In this piece of coursework I’m going to look at the differences between the Tabloids and The Broadsheets.

Tabloids are sometimes known as the popular press because most people read them. They are also names “Red Tops” because of there format with the small pages that don’t need to be folded although they include some certain news they also include a lot of celebrity gossip, adverts and pictures. They have smaller pages than The Broadsheets making them easier to read and there is no need to fold them.

The Broadsheets are aimed at those who like a mores serious newspaper and have often been nicknamed “The Qualities”. They have many more serious stories than The Tabloid covering a wider area like political and foreign items which The Tabloids would neglect because they think that their target audience would not be interested in these sorts of topics. Therefore traditionally Broadsheets have been aimed at middle and upper class predominantly professional readers, Conversely Tabloids have been aimed at lower working class readers and the language and format reflect on that target audience.

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In the Tabloids they use a negative pun as a headline “Sty-Dentical” and again “Strom as Boffins clone first pigs”. Were as The Broadsheet uses a positive headline with no puns but factual saying “Cloned pigs could soon be saving lives”. Also with a sub heading again a positive but factual by saying “Transplants of ‘humanised’ organs would end the worlds organ shortage”. The effect of The Tabloids pictures are very effective because they are eye catching making the reader feel sad and emotional about the pigs and making them buy the paper and read it. But in The Broadsheet it uses pictures of the actual cloned pigs therefore attracting of an upper social class person to read it. The Sun uses its pictures to break up the text and make it look easier to read and therefore making the reader want to read it because it looks as if there is not much writing as there actually is.

In The Tabloid newspapers you usually find only one sentence per paragraph with no more than five lines per paragraph. They usually use bold headlines and pictures to attract people. But as in the Broadsheet they use long sentences in their paragraphs with no picture because it does not matter about breaking up the text making it look easier to read, because people who buy it buy it to read not like The Tabloids because it looks easier to read. Tabloids use informal language and The Broadsheets use formal language and never ever use slang or jokey terms or puns like in The Tabloid “Sty-Dentical” and “Boffins” and in The Broadsheet they use formal terms like “Cloned pigs could soon be saving lives”. They use colloquial language in The Tabloids which is everyday language also no jokey language like the word found in The Tabloids “Swoop Opps” and “Boffins”.

In Tabloids you will never see the word “Xenotransplantation” which is were you transfer an organ from one species to another like a pig’s heart in to a human for example. But in The Broadsheets you will find it, also you will find words like “Humanise, Technical Hurdles, and Clinical Trails” you will find these sort of word all the time as everyday language in The Broadsheets. The Broadsheet tries to report in an unbiased way but the Tabloid reports in a negative biased way for example “Storm, Frankenstein, porkers, boffins and silent viruses”.

So the main differences between the two types of paper are the size of the pages and how they are laid out with the pictures and the text. I preferred the one written in the Broadsheet because it gives you a better background about the story and scientific facts about the cloned pigs that could be saving lives.

By Carl Courtney (12:4)